You can see Mike in this photo too, he's behind the lady in the coral long sleeve shirt. The more important aspect of this photo is that you can see the first and second place runners. Guess who they are? The guy in the white tanktop bending over? Guess again. The guy in the blue shirt and blue shoes? Nope. The guy in the black shirt wiping his nose? Not even close.

The first place finisher was the woman in the blue Nike sports bra and green and pink shoes and the second place finisher was the woman in the white tanktop and pink shorts. Their times were 30:18 and 30:34, respectively. The third place finisher's (the guy in the white tanktop bending over) time was 31:24. That's chicking at its finest right there.

I hope that they put more photos up because I'm pretty sure there's a really awesome photo of me near the finish. I have been checking Lollypop Farm's Flickr site obsessively for the past week and a half.

Now, onto the lessons that we learned.

Last night Mike and I didn't run. Even though we were supposed to, but Mike ended up having to work later than he was scheduled. Good thing we ended up running on Tuesday.

One lesson that I have been learning throughout our entire running process is that sometimes we have to be flexible. Admittedly, this is hard for me. I am type A to the extreme. Just ask my friend who was our wedding day coordinator. I had everything labeled, with pictures and a list attached. Everything was planned just so and then, as with all weddings, some things had to be improvised or changed.

Gratuitous wedding shoe photo Photo by Ryan T. Collier(if you go on his site you can find more photos of us)

I am learning that the same thing applies to running. Some days we just can't run even though our schedule says we are supposed to. When we were first running, I would get mad when we had to stop at traffic lights because it "couldn't count as time that we ran" (pretty much an actual quote). Granted we were running for time then, but really? I need to lighten up at times. (If you are interested you can read about how I really feel about traffic lights here.)

Even though yesterday we were supposed to run 3 miles, we ended up doing 5 miles tonight. Since it was close to 7pm when we started we just ran near our house. When we got ready to leave Mike realized that our Garmin was only at 13% battery. He quickly charged it a little bit more and got it up to 16%. We decided that since the battery might die that we would do an out and back route and turn around after 2.5 miles so that we would at least know our distance.

I felt really good during this run. I wore our headlamp because it was going to get dark but I probably didn't need to wear it. I think I love night time running!

Right before we got to the halfway point Mike said to me "my shoe is untied".

We got to 2.46 miles and we stopped so that he could tie his shoe. I hope that from now on he is going to double tie his shoes like someone else in this family.

At that point we just turned around because we were practically at halfway anyway and the Garmin seemed to be holding up. Seemed is the operative word here.

After we finished the third mile, Mike looked at the Garmin and said "we are going 9:34 pace". I replied that I felt fine so we needed to keep going and possibly get me a 5 mile PR since we were on pace for it. Then the Garmin beeped that it was at low battery.

The Garmin died at 3.91 miles. Big bummer since we were still going 9:33 pace.

Since we turned around a little before halfway we ended up running past where we started.

We were still going pretty strong the last mile, so we decided to say that we went 10:20 in the end. That would give us a time of 50:43, which beats my 5 mile PR. Obviously I can't count it because we aren't entirely sure what we did the last mile, but whatever we did still beat my current PR.

So the major lesson from tonight?

Charge the Garmin! Especially for training runs where a PR might be set.

What are some lessons you have learned from running (or life in general) recently?

5 comments:

You ARE type A to the MAX!! Haahaaa!! And I can say that since I was your Wedding Day Coordinator!!What did I learn today? I think I learned that my mind can create pain where there might possibly be none! I got up this morning and felt GREAT! My knees felt 100%, or seemed to. I read a little more in that book, which seemed kind of confusing. I'm not sure if I'm pushing as I should, or doing too much. In any case, I asked my daughter if she wanted to go on a hike to get a cache (a nice 'warm up' for my run later, right?!), and off we went. It was only a 15 min drive, and when I got out of the Jeep, my right knee INSTANTLY hurt quite bad! I was facing a bunch of steps to go up and down...was my brain psyching me out, thinking I'd hurt myself anyway?? Or was it from reading that book, finding out that perhaps I've pushed myself too far too fast, and might have 'Runner's Knee'??I'm not sure, but my knee was hurting a lot all day, then tonight, the pain went mostly away, almost as quick as it set in. Am I over-thinking?? After all, I hurt my knee really bad in the Spring of 2010, and it took MONTHS to heal, so perhaps I'm freaking out and am afraid of getting hurt again? Am I allowing the 'fear' of getting hurt actually making me FEEL hurt?? I know the brain can play tricks on a person and do that sort of thing.In any case, I didn't run today, just hiked. I'm disappointed. I finished reading the book just now. I still am unsure if I'm overdoing it, but I'm hoping to get out tomorrow and run comfortably, not push it too much.I'll let ya know what happens.

Please don't overdo it! It is hard to distinguish between mental and physical pain sometimes but an extra rest day here and there wouldn't hurt. I'm not really one to talk though because I have definitely run through pain the entire time we have been running, with very few extra rest days.

If you are ever changing your gait while you are running to compensate for pain (guilty) then you should probably stop. If you can "comfortably" run through the pain and run your normal gait then you should be ok.

Maybe I should read that book to see what it says. For me I guess it was a lot of trial and error with my running form. It probably took about a month or so for me to figure out what worked.

So true - sometimes a harder workout just needs to be cut short or turned into a easy day. I'm slowly learning that as I get into my peak miles for my fall marathon. Staying healthy is the most important!

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"You have to wonder at times what you're doing out there. Over the years, I've given myself a thousand reasons to keep running, but it always comes back to where it started. It comes down to self-satisfaction and a sense of achievement." - Steve Prefontaine

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All opinions on this blog are my own and should not be used as a replacement for professional medical care and advice. It is recommended that anyone over the age of thirty-five seek medical approval before starting a new exercise program. In addition, the products and programs mentioned on this blog are ones that I have had success with and I am not compensated by these companies or individuals in any way, unless otherwise indicated.